On Labor Day, I rode my motorcycle to the Franconia Sculpture Garden. It’s a beautiful drive along the St. Croix River, and one I find relaxing. The weather was excellent, a few degrees cooler than the week before, which made for a pleasant ride.
When I returned and took the exit for our neighborhood at 46th & 35W, the city’s stress was immediately upon me again. This intersection is populated day and night by people asking for money, on both exit ramps and on several corners leading up to the light. Sometimes someone looks as though they’re trying to raise money for their family or to get back on their feet. But for the most part, these are people asking for money to buy drugs.
This time, a trio was hunched behind the electrical box, smoking from aluminum foil. One kept swaying sideways toward traffic. It’s a visceral experience to see this from a motorcycle. There’s no glass or steel between you and them, just a few feet of open air. There’s a temptation to put down the kickstand, walk over, and ask: Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone, a friend or family member? Does anyone in the group have Narcan?
The light changes, and I drive through. On the other side, two more people are pressed against the highway wall, getting high. It occurs to me that the dealer must have just come through. Everyone has set down their cardboard signs to get their fix. It’s happening right there, within arm’s reach, and yet I feel powerless to help. I’m watching a group of people possibly kill themselves with fentanyl, and then I drive home. In 2024, 91 percent of opioid-related deaths in Minnesota involved fentanyl. That includes 48 deaths in Hennepin County’s District 3, 44 in Minneapolis, and 4 in St. Louis Park. Hennepin County overall saw 264 opioid-related overdose deaths. If one of those people climbed onto the overpass wall and threatened to jump onto the highway, police and fire crews would respond immediately. Yet what I witnessed that day raises no alarms at all.
This experience is not unique to me. When I asked my editor whether she thought there were more people on street corners these days, she described a similar scene at a different intersection that left her shaken, desperate people wandering unsteadily through the intersection with little regard for traffic. That’s part of why it was disheartening to read the September 8 Star Tribune story “Minnesota closed three addiction centers, leaving dwindling treatment choices,” by Jessie Van Berkel. As of August 1, only two Community Addiction Recovery Enterprise (CARE) centers remained open, down from five. These centers accept people involuntarily committed by a judge who has found they’re likely to harm themselves or others and require treatment. Under federal regulations, pregnant women and intravenous drug users get priority for admission, followed by people in jail who should be in treatment instead. At the time the article was written, there were 53 people on waitlists. Last year, Minnesota saw 767 civil commitment cases due to chemical dependency. The state legislature approved $75 million to add 50 beds at the Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center (AMRTC), which comes to $1.5 million per bed.
The state is struggling to keep up with demand for treatment beds. Even if we committed every person feeding an addiction on street corners, we wouldn’t have enough service providers or facilities to treat them. Better Minneapolis is unlikely to interview the candidates for governor before the November election, but if we did, we’d ask: what is your plan for addressing the fentanyl and methamphetamine crisis? Talk to people who work in this field, and you’ll hear the same complaint again and again: a lack of coordination between departments. What’s needed is a governor willing to declare this a health emergency, the way the state did for COVID-19. That declaration would allow the state to override local county commissions and city councils and pursue a genuinely coordinated approach. A statewide task force with the authority to consolidate resources and direct their use may be the only way to change the current trajectory. We’re spending tens of millions of dollars on a disjointed approach that keeps falling short of what’s required.
One way this task force could outperform the current system is by identifying available resources and directing their use. The former Hennepin County Home School comes to mind as one possible facility. It sits idle, and Anoka County can’t use it. Instead, that county will have to find or build its own facility, a process that will take years and cost significantly more. A state task force could direct the reopening of the Hennepin County Home School as a CARE facility. This kind of action makes sense on several levels. First, people in urgent need of treatment could receive it faster, which can be the difference between life and death. Second, it makes financial sense to keep people out of jails and emergency rooms. Without other options, jails and emergency rooms become de facto treatment centers, the most expensive and least effective choice available.
Generally speaking, we favor local control, but some issues are best addressed at the state level. If a special tax were needed to fund a task force like this, it would have to pass at the state level. California has a 1 percent personal income tax surcharge on high earners (taxable income over $1 million) called the Mental Health Services Act. Oregon has a tax on cannabis and a Portland Metro Supportive Housing Services Tax (also a 1 percent tax on high earners), and a 1 percent business profits tax. Washington State has a Mental Health and Chemical Dependency Sales Tax, which allows counties to charge a 0.1 percent local sales tax. We’re not necessarily advocating for more taxes. What we’re asking for is more coordinated planning around how Minnesota addresses mental health and addiction services, so that cities, counties, and the state stop duplicating efforts, overspending, and stretching regulators too thin to be effective.
If it turns out that an additional tax is needed, especially given the cuts we’re seeing to Medicaid at the federal level, we need to hold our elected officials to a high standard of accountability. They must show that additional money is tied to measurable outcomes. We can’t afford to let dedicated funds for mental health and chemical dependency become a black hole of wishful thinking and fraud.
Our communities, cities and counties alike, are hurting because of this crisis. They need the state to do more if we’re going to address what is occurring in a serious manner. Consider that in cities like Portland, roughly half of police calls are related to drug and mental health crises. That statistic alone shows how the hidden costs of this epidemic continue to spiral. As with COVID-19, money spent now to stop the spread of this disease is money that, in time, becomes available for other priorities, or for keeping taxes down. If we do get the chance to interview the candidates for governor, we’ll ask them: How many deaths are an acceptable number before you commit the resources this problem demands? And how far are you willing to go to stop the spread of this disease?
